Chapter Text
The Orbital Decay Spread
(c. 1985; author unknown)A non-divinatory tarot layout developed for the examination of relational systems under sustained imbalance.
Unlike predictive spreads, Orbital Decay assumes motion already in progress. Cards are read as pressures rather than outcomes, with emphasis placed on restraint, misalignment, and the redistribution of emotional load over time.Reversals are interpreted as internalized states, deferred action, or containment, rather than negation.
The spread does not offer resolution. Its function is diagnostic: to observe whether continued distance stabilizes a system—or accelerates collapse.Note: Orbital Decay presumes proximity alters outcome. Readers seeking reassurance, clarity, or definitive guidance are advised to consult alternative layouts.
Robin found the deck at a roadside shop on the way back from outside Hawkins. The little white booklet inside was thin and pretentious and written like it wasn’t expected to be taken serious. She stared at it for a long time.
“Well,” she said finally. “That feels personal.”
It’s late when she arrived—the WSQK station was half-dark; the air was still humming with generators and old fear. Hawkins hadn’t learned how to be quiet again yet; the town just helds its breath between aftershocks.
Robin waved the tarot deck like a trophy when she cames in, laughing as she told the others she had been hooked by a weird line in the booklet and the weird woman at the counter who had said, “It’s good for people who don’t like answers.”
Thats why they were sitting on the floor of the radio station now —Steve on the couch because his ribs still ached when he sat too long, Jonathan cross-legged opposite him on the ground, Nancy and Robin flanked the space like bookends pretending this is casual.
“Okay,” Robin said, and clapped her hands once. “This is not a prediction thing. This is a vibe thing.” She had decided to try the deck with Jonathan and Steve,
Steve snorted. “That’s even worse.” while moving to the set.
Jonathan reached for the deck anyway. Their fingers brushed. No one commentsed on it.
They shuffled the cards one after the other before Steve put them back on the ground.
Nancy and Robin each looked in the small booklet, spread between them, ready to interpret the cards that would be drawn.
Card One: The Center of Gravity
What pulls them toward each other
Jonathan drew first, Steve only flipped the card.
The Star. Of course it is.
Jonathan’s breath got caughed—not sharp enough to be obvious, but Steve noticed it anyway. He always noticed the quiet things Jonathan did, the almosts and nearlys.
“The Star,” Nancy murmured “Hope.”
Robin tilted her head. “Or guidance. Or—” She squinted at the booklet “—seeing something that’s been there the whole time.”
Steve stared at the card. It didn’t felt like hope. It felt like distance. Like he was looking at something beautiful and unreachable and knowing it would still affect the tides. He didn't say that, but Nancy did. “It’s… not fixing anything,” she said slowly. “It’s just… there. Steady.”
Steve swallowed
Card Two: Steve’s Orbit
What the one wants but won’t say
Steve drew this one alone. He fliped it over and froze.
Strength.
The woman on the card didn’t fight the lion. She held its jaw gently, like she trusted it not to bite. Robin made a noise. “Oh that’s rude.”
Steve laughed out of reflex, sharp and wrong. “I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.”
Jonathan looked at him. Really looked.
“It’s not about force,” Nancy said, “It’s about restraint. About holding back something powerful because you’re afraid of hurting someone.”
Steve’s chest tightened. He thought of hands he never let linger. Of words he swallowed. Of how easy it would be to ruin things just by wanting too loudly.
Card Three: Jonathan’s Orbit
The other One sees but refuses to touch
Jonathan drew it.
The Moon.
The card feelt cold in his hands.
“Fear,” Nancy answered quietly. “Confusion.”
Robin nodded once, almost too fast. “Avoidance.”
Jonathan looked up at her. “That’s not the same thing.”
Robin’s mouth twitched. “It is if you’re good at it.”
Jonathan didn’t push. He filed it away with all the other things he never let himself have.
Card Four: Closest Approach
The moment they came nearest before pulling away
Robin insisted, they drew it together again.
Steve’s hand landed over Jonathan’s without thinking. Jonathan stiffened—but didn’t pull away. They flipped the card.
The Tower. Upright.
No one laughed this time.
Steve’s pulse spiked. He saw red lightning, a radio tower, the sky torn open. He felt hands on his arm, desperate, burning.
Jonathan’s voice was barely audible.“That night.”
Steve noded. “That was… close enough to kill us,” he said
Robin met his eyes. “Or save you.”
The difference hung between the boys.
Card Five: What Keeps Them From Colliding
The barrier
Nancy drew this one for them, like she was bracing for impact.
The Lovers. Reversed.
Robin exhaled sharply. “Well. That’s—yeah.”
Steve didn’t look at Nancy or Robin. He didn’t need to.
Jonathan however did, and then looked away again.
“It doesn’t mean we chose wrong,” Nancy said softly after she had looked into the booklet again. “Sometimes it just means the choice was… incomplete.”
Steve’s jaw tightened
Card Six: The Unspoken Agreement
What they both know but don’t admit
Jonathan drew again.
The Hermit.
Of course. Steve almost laughed Almost. Jonathan studied the lantern on the card. “Distance as protection.” Robin announced
Steve’s voice cames out a bit ough. “From what?”
Jonathan didn’t answer.
Card Seven: The Risk of Collision
What they’re afraid will happen if they collide
It was again Steve’s draw.
The Devil.
Robin winced “Yikes.” before she investigated the booklet.
Steve felt sick. Not because it was a dark card—but because it was honest.
“Loss of control,” Nancy added quietly.
Robin nodded “Yeah.”
Steve thought of wanting so badly it turned mean. Of touching and never wanting to let go. Of being needed and mistaking that for love. Jonathan stayed silent.
Card Eight: The Outcome If They Do Nothing
If the orbit continues unchanged
Robin turned the card this time.
The Eight of Cups.
A figure walked away beneath a moon that didn’t follow.
Jonathan didn’t react at first. Then his shoulders dropped— not in defeat, but in recognition.
“It’s not leaving,” Nancy said quietly. “It’s… choosing not to stay.”
Robin starred for a moment at the card, then “This isn’t running. This is self-preservation.”
Steve’s chest tightened, and he felt something hollow open there. Because he knew this version of leaving.
Not slammed doors.
Not goodbyes.
Just distance that grew so slowly no one noticed it until it was permanent.
“You don’t collide,” Nancy’s voice was soft “You just… lose orbit.”
Jonathan finally looked at Steve.
“And by the time you realize,” Robin added, “there’s nothing left to fall toward.”
Steve swallowed.
This card didn’t mean they stopped caring.
It meant caring wasn’t enough to hold the gravity together forever.
The path was quiet.
The damage was invisible.
The ending was clean.
That’s what made it cruel.
Card Nine: What if they finally collide
What would happen if they let themselves fall
Jonathan and Steve drew it together again. When Steve’s hand landed this time on Jonathan's, the other one didn't stiffen. They just flipped the card.
Temperance.
The angel poured something from one cup to another — slow, precise. One foot was in water. The other one on land.
Nothing spilled. Robin frowned. “That’s not… hope.”
“No,” Steve suddenly said “It’s containment.”
Nancy nodded in agreement. “Temperance isn’t about healing. It’s about control.”
Robin tilted her head. “It’s about not letting either of you carry the full weight alone.”
Jonathan studied the card.
“If we fall,” he sid slowly, “it doesn’t stop hurting.”
Steve’s breath got caught in his throat.
“It just stops transferring,” he finished
Temperance didn’t promise safety.
It didn’t undo the Tower.
It didn’t erase the Devil.
It only said this:
What was split to survive can be recombined—
but only if both sides stayed present.
Not distance.
Not orbit.
Not sacrifice.
Balance was work.
Balance was choice.
Balance could still fail if either one let go.
Jonathan starred at the opposite wall
“So it’s not rescue,” Robin finally said.
Steve met Jonathans gaze. Holds it.
“No,” Nancy looked up from the booklet and to the cards “It’s responsibility.”
The cards didn’t glow. Nothing resolved neatly. But the spread had stopped arguing with itself. None of them reached for the cards again that night
Temperance won’t save you.
It only asks that you stay.
In the end, they packed the cards up slowly, like no one wanted to be the first to do it
Eventually Robin cleared her throat. “Okay. I’m starving. I’m calling this a successful night.”
Nancy stoods up “I’ll grab the keys.”
They left Steve and Jonathan alone without making a big deal of it. Like they had planned it that way. The station hummed around them. Steve exhaled “So. That was… a thing.”
Jonathan’s voice was flat when he answered. “Yeah.”
Silence.
Then, softer: “Do you think orbiting forever is worse than crashing?”nSteve had turned away from him.
“I think,” He added carefully, “that I’m tired of pretending gravity isn’t real.”
Jonathan’s breath hitched. He didn’t answer right away. But he also didn’t step back.
Outside, somewhere above the town, the stars didn’t fix anything. They just kept shining.
Because this time—neither of them looked away.
The Lovers (Reversed)
It didn’t happen right away.The cards were packed up und forgotten in one of the shelfs. The station had long gone quiet again. The fight had ended in the messy way fights like this always did—no clean victory, just exhaustion and repairs and people that had to learn how to stand in rooms again, that no longer felt like battlegrounds.
They attempted a version of normal that required less risk.
Steve dated, Jonathan pretended not to notice. Jonathan took photos, Steve pretended not to memorize.
They sat across from each other at tables too big for the silence between them.
They circled conversations and never allowed them to be resolved.
The problem wasn’t that they didn’t want each other.
The problem was that maintaining a orbit started to feel like a deliberate misalignment.
The first mistake was touch—accidental, brief, electric.
The second was eye contact held too long.
The third was the night Steve said, half-joking, “You ever think we’re bad at pretending?”
Jonathan answered without looking up. “Yeah.”
They didn’t crash all at once.
They drifted closer in increments small enough to be denied.
They stopped correcting assumptions.
They sat side by side instead of across.
Gravity did the rest.
And when they finally collide, it wasn’t explosive.
It was quiet. Certain, and long overdue.
It wasn’t aTower moment.
It was a Star one.
The Lovers, reversed—not a lack of feeling, but a refusal to accept the cost of choosing.
They didn’t know yet that this wasn’t the end of the waiting.
It was just the last version of it.
Orbit only worked as long as neither of them needed more than the system allowed.
The Star
The Squawk basement smelled like dust, hot electronics, and burned coffee—the kind that had been reheated too many times because no one wanted to be the one to stop talking. The radio station’s lower level was never meant to hold this many people, but it was what they had gotten now. Folding chairs had been dragged into a loose circle. Maps were taped crookedly to the walls, red string marked possible gates, weak points, places they had already crawled.
Outside, Hawkins was under quarantine. Military trucks idled at the edge of town. Inside, the lights hummed like they were trying not to draw attention to themselves.
Steve leaned back against the table, arms crossed, pretended not to listen while Dustin outlined the next crawl with the intensity of a NASA briefing. Hopper’s rules were written on the whiteboard behind him in block letters—no solo runs, no heroics—already smudged from being erased and rewritten.
Jonathan sat on the edge of the table, camera rested idle against his thigh. He hadn’t lifted it once tonight. Not since they had gotten back. Not since Hawkins had started fto feel like a place you survive instead of leaving.
They didn’t ook at each other much. Not directly at least. But Steve tracked Jonathan’s movements the way others tracked weather—subtle shifts, pressure changes, the sense that something important was coming whether you wanted it to or not.
Robin was talking. Nancy nooded in agreement Someone laughed, sharp and a little too loud, like laughter still had to be proven that it belonged here.
Steve thought If he leavs the room, I’ll feel it without seeing
The thought settled into his chest with alarming certainty.
Jonathan glanced up at the low ceiling, at nothing really. The station hummed around them—generators, radios, life was still moving forward. He felt.... steadier here. Less hollow than he had been in weeks. Like something inside him had stopped drifting, just enough to breathe.
It didn’t fix anything. It just stayed visible long enough to matter.
Hope didn’t announce itself.
It didn’t fix anything.
The Star didn’t pull.
It only marked where true north was
It just sat down quietly and waited.
Strength
Steve Harrington ran. It was instinct. Fear. Self-preservation drilled deep into muscle memory. He barreld out the door, lungs burned, the sounds behind him too big, too wrong. Then he stopped.
Because Jonathan and Nancy were still inside.
Steve turned around
The bat was right behind the door on the floor, like it had been waiting for him. He grabbed it without thinking and charged around the corner. The demogorgon had Jonathan pinned, claws digged in, snapping only inches from his face. Jonathan’s hands were shaking but still pushing, still fighting. Steve didn’t yell. He just swung.
Wood met flesh. Again. Again. Again.
The force of it drove the creature back, howling, stumbling down the hallway. Steve kept hitting it, breath torn out of him, fear turned feral and focused. Jonathan scrambled up, staring at Steve like he saw him for the first time.
Steve drove the creature straight into the bear trap. It screamed but he didn’t care. He just ran back to Jonathan and Nancy “NOW”
Jonathan didn’t hesitate. He flicked the lighter open, clicked the flame to life and threw it in the hallway.
Strength is power restrained long enough to keep someone else alive.
The Moon
The darkroom was red-lit and silent, the air thick with chemicals and concentration. Jonathan watched images bloom slowly in the developer.
His family. Will smiling, rare and bright. Joyce mid-laugh.
Nancy and Steve together—hands brushed; bodies angled instinctively toward each other.
Nancy alone. Thoughtful. Soft.
Steve alone. That one caught him.
Steve was leaning against his car. Jacket slung over one shoulder, jaw tensed, eyes distant. Not performing. Not surrounded.
Jonathan studied the photo longer than he should have had.
There’s something unresolved in it. Something lonely.
Jonathan washed the photo carefully, heart heavier than before.
The Moon didn’t lie, but it didn’t explain either.
It only showd you what you didn’t want to admit you’d seen already.
The Tower
The tower screamed as they climbed it
Reality fractured around them—wind howling, lightning ripped through the sky, the Abyss bleed into the Upside Down like a wound that won’t close.
They all made it to the main platform. They waited for Eleven to stop the merge.
The other dimension didn’t stop moving. The tower needle cracked first—not clean, just enough to let metal scream and had them all stumbling back a step.
Jonathan felt the jolt through the platform before he registered the sound. A warning shudder. Balance turned unreliable.
Steve reached for him without looking—a reflex, not a rescue. His hand caught Jonathan’s shoulder, steadying him as debris rained down around them. Hot. Urgent.
You good? without words.
Then the other dimension answered The needle gave way completely. Metal torn loose as the platform lurched and they all dropped instinctively, and ducked low to avoid the worst of the falling wreckage. The railing on Steve’s side snapped and fell.
Jonathan felt the shift immediately—weight redistributing where it shouldn’t, the sudden absence of resistance. Steve’s footing went wrong, just for a second. Just long enough.
The platform shuddered again.
Steve slid—off the edge where there was nothing to stop him. His fingers scraped over metal and then lost it.
For half a second, he was falling. Not far. Not fast. Just long enough for the absence of weight to register—the sickening drop in his stomach, the certainty that the ground won’t come up to meet him.
Jonathan didn’t think. He threw himself forward, chest slamed into the edge, fingers clawed for purchase as he caught Steve’s wrist hard enough to bruise—locked around, brutal and unyielding.
The impact jarsed Steve back into gravity like a slammed door.
“Just hold on, I’ve got you,” Jonathan shouted into the darkness “Just—hold on!”
Steve’s grip tightened. He trusted it without a question.
The Tower didn’t fall.
But something broke anyway.
The Hermit
Jonathan slept on a mattress on the floor in Lenora, California, walls bare, life paused.
Steve slept on a couch in Hawkins, bat within reach.
They both told themselves they were fine. Isolation became routine. Distance became discipline.Each one believed the other was safer, better without them.
The Hermit closed the door — not to punish, but to prevent imbalance.
It worked
Until it didn’t
The Devil
The wanting didn’t stop just because it wasn’t named. Steve caught himself tracking Jonathan’s voice across rooms. Jonathan memorized the way Steve stood too close when he was tired. Neither touched. Neither left
The Devil is what happens when two people share gravity but refuse responsibility for where it pulled them.
Eight of Cups
Jonathan left for NUY in the early morning. Steve didn’t say goodbye.
He watched the car disappear, hands in his pockets, jaw locked tight, tears fillied his eyes that never would be shed.
Some journeys aren’t about wanting to go.
They’re about knowing you can’t stay.
Temperance
Philadelphia was loud and alive, Robin’s weird uncle’s house was packed with laughter and mismatched chairs. They ended up in the garden. It was August 12th. Perseid meteors streak the sky. Steve and Jonathan layed shoulder to shoulder, not touching, but closer than they’ve been in years. A star burned bright and disappeared.
Steve made a wish he didn’t say aloud.
Jonathan didn’t look away this time.
What was split to survive can be recombined—
but only if both sides stay present.
☆
Christmas in Montauk, 1989
They didn’t meant for it to happen. That was the thing Steve will think about later—that there was no plan, no dramatic choice. Just a room that was too small and a night that was already worn thin at the edges.
It was late. Past midnight. Christmas lights hummed softly around the living room, most of the house was asleep or pretended to be. The kids were camped out in sleeping bags, Joyce and Hopper talked in the kitchen, Robin had passed out on the floor with an empty mug balanced dangerously on her stomach.
Steve stepped outside first. He told himself he needed air.
Jonathan followed a minute later, quiet as ever, jacket pulled tight against the cold.
He clocked it immediately — the way Steve’s stance was off. Not unsteady, just… braced. Like he had been holding himself upright all night and had finally ran out of reasons.
Jonathan didn’t ask permission. He never did He just… appeared like he always had like he’d learned how close he could stand without touching.
The porch light cast them in a dull amber glow. Breath fogged the air.
They stood there, shoulder to shoulder but not touching, staring out into the dark like it might offer instructions.
Steve noticed it first in his hands.
The way Jonathan stood closer than necessary. The way Steve’s fingers curled and uncurled at his sides. Not grabbing. Not reaching. Just… calibrating.
As if part of him was already measuring how much weight he could take.
“This is stupid,” Steve said finally.
Jonathan huffed a quiet laugh. “Yeah.”
Neither moved.
Steve’s heart was beating too fast. It had been all night. All month. All year, if he was honest with himself. He’s was tired of holding himself still.
“I tried,” he said, not looking at Jonathan. “You know that, right?”
Jonathan’s voice was careful. “I know.”
“I tried to—” Steve gestured vaguely, frustrated. “Keep things the same. Keep things… safe.”
Jonathan didn’t touch him.
But he felt it anyway — the pull, the pressure, the way standing this close already askd something off his body. Like if Steve leaned even a fraction, Jonathan would had to decide whether to catch him or not.
Jonathan shifted just enough that Steve felt it. Heat sipped through layers of fabric.
“We were never safe,” Jonathan’s voice sounded soft.
That landed harder than anything else tonight.
Steve turned then. Really looked at him. Jonathan’s face was familiar in a way that felt dangerous now—lines he had memorized without meaning to, expressions he knew how to read better than his own.
The porch boards creaked when Jonathan shifted his weight. It was subtle, but Steve felt it anyway — the way the space between them changed, not distance but balance.
Like if one of them moved wrong, the other would have to catch it.
“You ever notice,” Steve’s voice was rough, “how we always stop right before it matters?”
Jonathan mets his gaze. Helds it.
“Yeah,” he answered “I noticed.”
The space between them tightened. Not distance—but pressure. Like the air itself was leaning in.
Steve laughed once, sharp and breathless. “God. I hate this.”
Jonathan didn’t look away. “Me too.”
That was all it took.
That was he moment the orbit broke — not with a push, but with a deliberate decision to stop holding distance in place.
Jonathan felt it first — the shift.
Not distance closing, but balance that tipped. The moment were standing still stopped being an option.
Steve reached out before he thought better of it.
It was instinct. Muscle memory. Fingers caught Jonathan’s jacket like he was bracing for something that hadn’t happened yet.
And then it happened
Their foreheads touched.
For one suspended second, neither of them breathed.
“This changes things,” Jonathan whispered
Steve closed his eyes. “I know.”
Jonathan shifted first. Just a breath, just enough.
An adjustment that said: If you fall, I’m here.
Steve got it and finally kissed him.
It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t gentle. It was the kind of kiss that came from holding back too long—mouth open, breath tangled, hands gripping like anchors. Jonathan made a sound, startled and wrecked, and then he kissed back just as hard, fingers fisted in Steve’s sweater like he was finally allowed to fall.
Jonathan leaned in fully— not falling, not stepping — just giving up the last inch of space that kept them upright. Steve’s footing gone with it, weight misjudged, gravity finally allowed to finish the sentence.
They didn’t stop it.
Steve only adjusted his grip, not to pull back, but to hold them through it, and they crashed lightly into the porch railing together — shared weight, shared imbalance, no way to stand apart anymore.
The rail rattled. The night exhaled
Neither of them let go.
The kiss turned messy after that. Real in a way Steve never had let himself imagine—too much mouth, breath slipping, hands clinging where they landed instead of where they were supposed to be. Jonathan laughed softly into it, breathless and wrecked.
“We’re really bad at subtle,” he murmured lips still brushing Steve’s.
Steve huffed a shaky laugh and let his forehead drop to Jonathan’s shoulder, like that was the only place it made sense to rest now. His hands were still trembling, but he didn’t pull them away.
“Yeah,” he said and for once, it didnt felt like a problem.
They stayed like that, pressed together, grounding each other through shared breath and shared weight.
Inside, someone shifted A floorboard creaked. But neither of them moved away.
The collision didn’t destroy them.
It proved they could hold the weight — as long as neither of them let go.